Separating the Heat from the Gap

Abstract

Increasing the conversion efficiency of incident solar energy to electricity is a key goal in the solar R&D community. In this issue of Joule , a conceptual hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) receiver design is reported by the research groups of Evelyn Wang and Gang Chen. High exergetic efficiency is achieved by absorbing below-bandgap and excessively high-energy photons as thermal energy, while allowing photons at the PV's bandgap to pass through to the underlying cell.